


blame it on my youth

by pharaohleap



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Over the Years, i tagged ships but it's not really that shippy, mentions of the whole cast really, really gold-centric, this is a huge mess, unless you squint, what happens when you take a big piece and cut it up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-01-29 18:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12636747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pharaohleap/pseuds/pharaohleap
Summary: He is sly, and he is crass. Heroism, they say, calls for everything he is not.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> There was a time when I used to write fanfics like nobody's business, but these days, all I seem to write are too-long character histories. Exhibit A, folks!
> 
> This twenty-five thousand some worded piece is an (unfinished) biography for Gold that I wrote for a forum roleplay, like, probably a year ago, yeesh. It ended up being more drabble than history, with more in-between-canon fluff than actual canon material, but I figured that those in-between-canon fluff pieces could be separated from the manga chapter novelizations and stand alone as their own little Gold-centric one-shots of varying length. Anywho, I don't know what I'm doing on this site quite yet, but if I ramble on much longer, this notes section is going to end up longer than the short introduction below, so... Enjoy, I suppose!
> 
> Title comes from the Mr. Big song of the same name.

The world, for all of its bright colors and its promises of better tomorrows, is unforgiving. It is a lesson hard learned by the people it houses, epiphanies hammered into minds at their weakest moments. Some learn faster than others; children his own age suffering in the shadows of their family. Some are orphaned, others abandoned. A little girl breaks her arms when she's alone in the mountains. Two are taken from their families, never again to be seen by those who had so loved them. They fight, they struggle, they fail – but none of them are _him_. Hunger claws at the bellies of the poor, heartbreak pounding inside the heads of those who have loved and those who have lost, but _he_ goes to bed with a stomach full and with the knowledge that he will never have to face the world alone. Dad's gone, yes, likely never to return, but his mother has affection down to an art, flooding him with enough to more than make up for a father figure lost. There may never be brothers or sisters, but there will always be the _Pokemon_ , infants at his birth and children in his childhood. Every morning filled with laughter and every night filled with song. What the citizens of Newbark Town call the Pokemon House, he calls _home_ , and while perfection may never have been in Arceus' grand design, Gold thinks back on those days with fond recollection and thinks that they might have just come close.  
  
Heroes are born from tribulations and triumph, and four come before him facing and achieving just that. No one expects him to follow in their footsteps. He is sly, and he is crass. Heroism, they say, calls for everything he is not.  
  
( _It'll take everything he's got to prove them all wrong – but that's more than he's willing to give to get it done._ )


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another, mostly because both this and the one that came before are terribly short. Imagine the entirety of the GSC arc happening in between them. Now you've got some context for the passage of time. =w=b

The mountain tops don't exactly scream the word “home” to him, but the hero with explosive hair can't exactly argue that the training he receives up on those peaks aren't worth the trek it took to get there or the trek it will take to get back down. There isn't the slightest doubt about it, however: Red is so far beyond him in battling skill, it's almost hard to believe that his senior only has a three year gain on him, and where he struggles against the frightening beasts that call these rocky grounds their home, _he_ seems to be most at home with what must be the only things on the planet short of another region-shaking catastrophe that can give him any sort of challenge. The first and most grueling order of business is a person would called “grinding up his Pokemon”, had this all taken place within the world of a video game – but once Exbo, Aibo, Polibo, and the others are reasonably strong enough, his newly dubbed Senpai shifts their training to better accommodate them both. Higher up they climb, their enemies growing stronger with each step, and genuine strategy becomes required to down those who stand in their way. He's tag teaming with _the champion Red_. It's a thought that strikes him as bizarre even after months of camping out under the starry night skies with him, roasting marshmallows and trying to throw them into each others' mouths. Oh, what the folks will say back home. He'll recount every waking detail to them, he thinks, when this little vacation comes to an end ( _or, at least, every detail short of one particular mishap involving the hot springs and a wild Pokemon making off with his clot- alright, scratch that, he doesn't want to think about it anymore_ ).  
  
Years seem to have flown by the time they part ways – or maybe it's only days, even though they haven't been on there for any fewer than four and any more than eight months with nothing but Mother Nature, their Pokemon, and their wits at their disposal – and he's more than a bit sad to tell his teacher goodbye. Thankfully, he doesn't need to. Unlike the _last_ boy he'd had to fight against, this one can actually reach a sound decision with him, and it takes only a few seconds of would-be awkward farewells for them to decide that this won't be the last time they meet on this mountain.

“Saur and the others get restless without a good fight,” Red says.

“Yeah, yeah. And I still haven't even gotten close to kicking your butt!” Gold says.

They laugh – they shake hands – they split.

_See you again in a few months!_


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Kind of forgot about this account at all, actually, but I bring with me this time a very Gold and Crystal-centric bit; one of the longest in the series, actually. Enjoy! <3

For all of their differences, it would be hard to hold up an argument against the fact that Gold and Crys work surprisingly well together in battle. “Opposites attract” is a phrase often used in the romantic pursuits, but he can't help but think of it when the two are up against the stray wild Pokemon that can't be dealt with by the locals, Arcanine on one side of the battlefield and Sudowoodo standing proud on the other. Her preference for planning and her meticulous nature are evident in every order she calls and every second she wastes _strategizing_ ; she's thrown into the fray, and while she'll never, not for even a second, panic, it's easy to see that she has to take a moment in order to formulate the best course of action. She can deal the decisive blows it'll take to win, often times punctuated by a kick of a ball and a Pokemon captured in the blink of an eye, but that doesn't always make up for the lulls in between that leave her open for attack. It's not to say that fighting one-on-one leaves her vulnerable. What it _is_ to say that, when paired with someone whose genius extends only as far as coming up with brilliant short-term plans in a second and finds himself at a lose trying to come up with a follow up once the immediate plot has reached its conclusion, the holes in not only _her_ offensive, but also his own are spectacularly filled. They've fought alongside one another long enough now for her to know how to prepare for whatever zany ideas he may vomit up, and together they work like well oiled clockwork. He acts distracts and weakens, and when he's down and out, she's had more than enough time to know when, where, and how to strike the decisive blow. Professor Elm commends them for their teamwork in the field on more than a few occasions, even the old geezer who gave them the encyclopedias that make them stand out from other trainers offering them high praise on a day he's lucky enough to see them fight side-by-side. Regrettably, the world internally groans, their system isn't so smooth in every day interaction.  
  
The Catcher is just as surprised to see him as he is her the day he shows up at Professor Oak's lab in Cherrygrove “looking for work” – it's a long story involving his gambling addiction, his mother's insistence on getting a “real job”, and avoiding the Daycare Woman's iron grip for as long as he can that he'd rather not delve into the specifics of – and while the arrangement only has them running into each other once, twice, maybe three times a week at _Elm's_ lab in New Bark Town, what was once easy going and quiet research quickly explodes into a battlefield fought only with words ( _and maybe Crys' too-strong legs if he's enough of an ass to deserve it_ ). It's simply in his nature to avoid busy work like this like the plague, and it doesn't take long for the girl who takes their jobs too seriously to have a fit over it. He slacks off, she screams at him, he “apologizes”; lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe this is payback for having a mom who never nagged him for all of his terrible behavior. If he's being honest with the world, he'd at least prefer the scolding from his single parental figure than from a kid no more than two years his elder. The only saving grace to be found is that they are more than well acquainted with each other's worth, and fight as they may, he still knows he can call her his close friend come the end of the day. He may be abrasive and have little control over his thoughts and emotions, but he's never insincere when it matters – and she, despite all of that nagging, has compassion beyond that of anyone he has ever known. When he falls, injured from one thing or another, she's always the first to rush to his side. When she asks him if he is okay, she's the first to say it in a way that doesn't imply that she expects him _not_ to be, that he's not strong enough to overcome it. She says it in a way that tells him that she wants him to be okay for his sake, not for anyone else's. She cares about _him_ , not his limitations.  
  
Moreover, just because she's been appropriately named the Super Serious Gal, that _doesn't_ mean they don't have a blast together between their bickering.  
  
They're out in the field one day, the tune to that song by DJ Mary about some boy and his Lapras and _rippling waves of love_ or something equally pretentious slipping passed The Hatcher's lips in a whisper and a sharp hush cutting over it in a futile attempt to silence what he calls “lightening the mood”. As it turns out, there are a lot more than the two hundred and so Pokemon the Kanto and Johto Pokemon Association had already confirmed, and despite Crystal's “completion” of Professor Oak's PokeDex, reports of Pokemon completely foreign to the joint regions have been flooding in water from a dam. ( _When tragedy looms, the creatures start moving; if only anyone had just noticed the signs._ ) In a matter of moments, the duo have gone from examining a Pidgeot searching for food on a route that nothing stronger than a Pidgeotto has ever been spotted on to shielding themselves from a sudden onslaught from strange beings resembling dragonflies. When Gold reaches for his Dex, hopelessly scrambling for some scrap of information he can use to his advantage, all he earns is a picture, a name – Vibrava – and many more question marks than he could have hoped for in that moment. _Great._ The two send out their full arsenal of Pokemon, neither one entirely sure what would work best against their unfamiliar enemy, but when each of their elemental attacks are shrugged off like an insect off a shoulder, the connection between these wild Pokemon and the dragon type becomes all too clear. _Even better._ Still, despite their type disadvantages and the fact that they are outnumbers twelve to... well, too many for him to possibly count in the heat of the moment, it's enough information for them to get to work on putting them all out of commission. His battle commands and her unbeatable aim must have caught twenty of the darned things before the sea of green and yellow starts to thin, both a combination of their chipping away at the numbers and the natural movement of the swarm. With improved vision, however, comes sight of one outlier in the crowd. It's bigger than the rest, orange and blue against the vibrating tide of a color resembling vomit, and when they both raise their PokeDex to it, the first thing they notice isn't the name – Flygon – but the fact that the image on their screen doesn't quite match up with what they're seeing on the non-digital plane.  
  
“A shiny!” Crystal says, expression bursting from a grimace to a grin just bubbling with excitement. She explains the theories behind what these “shinies” are in a hurried tone, why they're named what they are and where the Professors believe they might have come from. Apparently, they're incredibly rare. ( _Gold doesn't tell her that the third member of their broken trio not only has seen one before, but_ owns _one._ ) “I've heard so many stories,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper, “but I've never seen one before with my own eyes. We _have_ to catch it!” And just like that, she's bounced back from awe to business, retrieving a level ball from her pack and instructing him to draw its attention away from the rest of the crowd. Whatever a Flygon is, however, it's certainly a force to be reckoned with. His attempts at a “distraction” only prove to anger it and send it charging their way, and it takes more than just a few Solar Beams from his Sunflora to slow it down enough for his partner to get in a good shot. Not a second is wasted when that happens; her leg is already moving, kicking furiously at the level ball and watching it collide with the center of the Pocket Monster's forehead. It shakes once, twice – then it pauses before it shakes a third, and neither of them move, _breathe_ until a whole minute of stillness has passed to confirm the completed capture. When they _do_ , it's without thought, two arms reaching into the air and two flat palms slapping against one another in the form of the best high five Gold has ever given or received in his entire life, and all the way back to the lab, all they can do is laugh and recount the whole experience in exaggerations, each bigger than the last. Their work is not without praise, either. Professor Oak nearly chokes on his coffee at the sight of the massive sparkling beast they reveal in his front lawn, a species never before seen on Johto's fertile soil, and while Crystal's bonus for the day goes straight to Earl's Pokemon Academy, Gold's is immediately blown on coins for Goldenrod City's fabulous slot machines.  
  
It's a day that goes down in infamy for the two. In moments of reminiscing, they'll both fondly recall the day they both captured their first shiny Pokemon – together.


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I've mentioned before that these little drabbles are actually sections of a larger character biography I did for Gold for a play-by-post roleplaying forum about a year back? What I probably DIDN'T mention was that the whole reason that I was playing Gold on this forum in question was that someone ELSE was playing Silver, and we were both trashy PreciousMetalShipping fangirls. Still are - at least, in my case, oops.
> 
> There's nothing explicitly romantic about this drabble or the ones that'll follow. The very last one I wrote very much IS unapologetically shippy, but I probably won't include it unless I ever get around to cranking out some sort of proper ending for this little "mini-series". I just figured a bit of context will help people understand if I drop tiny little shippy hints or jokes here or there in this drabble and any of the ones to come. There's as much subtle Gold/Crys in these as there is subtle Gold/Silver, so hopefully - whether you're a fan of the former, the latter, both, or neither - everyone can walk away more or less happy!
> 
> And, let's be real: the real star of the show here is Gold, everyone's favorite lovable jerkwad. Can't be wasting Gold's precious screen time focusing on other Dex Holders, that'd be PREPOSTEROUS.

To the surprise of literally no one ( _except Crystal, but no one else is surprised by_ that _, either_ ), Silver makes himself sparse to everyone but Blue once the Mask of Ice incident has been resolved. He inserted himself into the affairs of Johto and, unwillingly, the lives of the other Dex Holders from the shadows, and back into them does he recede once his life long goal has been completed, at another's hands or otherwise. And that's fine. Outside of the spikey-haired teen-turned-Gym Leader, their group of seven is just a touch too lively for someone as _dark_ and _brooding_ ( _read: edgier than that one video game hedgehog_ ) as Silver, and if he's more comfortable in his solitude than in their crowds, so be it. Despite all of that, though, Gold still finds himself huffing and puffing when he comes down from that mountain to discover that his rival hasn't shown his face even _once_ in all of that absence, and even though the capture specialist has supposedly squeezed his elder sister dry when it came to what his phone number was ( _“It was... hard work. But as fellow Dex Holders, we have an obligation to make sure he's alright... wherever he is.”_ ), she won't give it to the older male so he can call and demand the rematch he so rightly deserves. Complain all he wants to, but it will never be enough to persuade her to his side. This is how his first days back from the sliver of unaffiliated land between Kanto and Johto are spent outside of his home. Time marches slowly – but it doesn't disappoint.

He's in the throes of predormitum when he hears a tapping on his window. It can't be any earlier than two in the morning when it first starts, and when his hazy mind doesn't immediately instruct him to rise and inspect, it starts again with more ferocity. Definitely not some stray branch. There's a grumble in his throat when he throws the covers off himself, and it accompanies him the whole distance between his bed and the offending pane of glass. It clips itself embarrassingly short, however, when he's faced with a familiar face scowling at him from the other side, barely holding himself up on the outer window sill and begging to be let indoors without so much as a nod of the head. Dumbfounded as Gold may be, he's not so taken aback that he can't oblige. The window is slid to the left – and immediately he's being shoved passed, a shivering red head barreling his way through until he stops in the middle of the room and recollects his bearings. Evidently, he was passing over New Bark Town on his way to something he calls a secret base of his just east of Cherrygrove City when his Murkrow gave out above him, sending him, cold and tired, plunging headfirst into the neighbors' yard.  
  
“I wouldn't be doing this if I had another option,” he keeps insisting. The only thing keeping him from carrying on is the fact that the walk to the neighboring city is an hour or so at best, and neither he nor any of his Pokemon are in any shape to be traveling that sort of distance for so little sleep.  
  
In a moment of stupidity, the raven-haired trainer asks why he didn't just pay a visit to the Pokemon Center. If he didn't realize the error of his question immediately after it fell off his unthinking lips, the death glare coming his way would have certainly done the trick. He didn't pay a visit to the Pokemon Center because, safe from Green's not entirely but mostly unforgiving sense of justice or no, he's still a wanted criminal. Professor Oak has not really _given_ him that PokeDex as he did Blue, nor has Professor Elm made any comments that would imply that he's all too happy about the fact that one of his three beloved starter Pokemon is “doing the dirty work for a grade A thief!”

The only logical conclusion, then, is to go to the one person in town who won't immediately hand him over to the police.

They stand in horrible silence for at least a minute or two, as far apart as they can manage and neither one sure what they are supposed to be saying and what they are supposed to be doing. This can only go on for so long. A sigh breaks past Gold's lips, and without another word, he goes about gathering a blanket tossed carelessly on the floor here and another one draped over his chair there, gathering them sloppily into his arms and making his way for the door once he's done. When he's there, Silver still hasn't moved, not even to look up from what must be a _very_ interesting spot on the floorboards between his shoes. Man, this guy just doesn't get it. “Well?” the older boy prompts. “You gonna crawl into bed or what?” A gawk hadn't been the intended result, but hey – he won't complain.

“Isn't that where you're sleeping?”

“Nah, I'll take the couch downstairs. Unless, I mean -” He punctuates his word with a teasing wiggle of the eyebrow, and it's hard to hold down the laugh bubbling in his throat long enough to get the words out and see what they cause. “- you _want_ to get in bed with me.”

It takes five minutes of pleading, apologizes, and hushed shouting ( _his mom is still asleep, after all, and despite her endless expanse of understanding and what_ has _to be apathy, she still wouldn't take too kindly to a stranger breaking in at two in the morning and sleeping in one of her beds_ ) to convince his rival to not leave then and there, and by the time Silver angrily flops himself onto the covers, no blankets and without taking off a single article of clothing, Gold, himself, is prepared to fall asleep on his feet. Thankfully, he's awake enough to make it down the stairs and into the living room, conscious long enough to flop face first into the lumpy cushions and half-heartedly cocoon himself in a pile of throw blankets retrieved from his room and the floor, too, here. It's impossible to tell when, exactly, sleep overcomes him entirely; from his perspective, he's only just settled down in a position as comfortable as he can get on a piece of furniture unfit for slumber when sunlight filtering through the windows comes clawing at his eyelids and his mother is hovering over him, inquiries of how and why he ended up _here_ of all places over the course of the night serving as a better alarm clock as any. As soon as he's out of her sight, he bolts for his room, part of him already suspicious of what he'll find – and even though he's guessed right from the first moment he was awake, it doesn't stop the disappointment that washed over him when he sees his bedsheets crumpled, but uncovered. “I'm not making this a habit,” Silver had told him indignantly just the night prior, and the memory paired with his empty bedroom leaves a frown playing with his lips. Apparently, his rematch will have to wait a little longer yet.

( _Only two weeks pass when a familiar sound comes pounding at his eardrum, and this time, he's up and out of bed immediately. “So much for not making this a habit,” he says like the loveable asshat he is, but all he earns for that is a downturn of the lips, a shove in the shoulder, and silence. His bed is occupied immediately this time, without the need for persuasion or unnecessary dirty jokes, and Gold resigns himself to his fate of sleeping on the couch every so often to his travel-weary opposite can invade his home. That's fair enough._

( _In the morning, he's still not fast enough to catch a glimpse of a slumbering Dex Holder. What he does find, however, is a something that looks suspiciously like a phone number written on a card sitting on his desk._ )


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been writing a ton, but none of it is stuff that's going to get read by more than, like... one person. I basically cranked out over twelve thousand words in about a day's time, in between homework and classes, and while I'm patting myself on the back for being a productive little busy bee, it also left me super burnt out for any work of writing that wasn't... that. Oops. Sorry if I've been slow on updates here; while this story's as completed already as it's going to get, I've been so busy writing OTHER things that updating this semi-regularly tends to slip my mind.

Routine is what has him waiting at the foothills of Mount Silver on the first Tuesday of every other month for his senpai to arrive and hand him his rear end on a decorative platter for two weeks before their training reaches its unceremonious end. Routine is what wakes him up at eight in the morning on weekends to show up at Professor Elm's lab, Gameboy in hand, and spend the next five hours pretending to file reports and fill out data while he saves virtual worlds with heroes far less impressive than himself. Routine is what has him showing up at the pool hall every night at eight o'clock sharp, and routine is what has DJ Mary's song hour blasting from his radio at the same time _every single evening_. He's every bit as volatile as the flames that surround Exbo's fiery neck, fickle as a child who wants to try everything but can't pick a favorite, but now that life has settled itself down into patterns, he finds himself growing bizarrely attached to them, wild as he may be _outside_ of them. This is why he swallows hard when his senpai never shows up for their mountain climbing adventures, even if logic should tell him that the guy just forgot. Show up again tomorrow to give him a hard time, start a day late, and leave a day late – only Red doesn't show up _then_ , either, and no matter how many times he tells himself that it's fine, it doesn't keep the darkest corners of his mind from telling him that maybe The Battler, too, has given up on him. _Whatever_. In a week, he'll get an apologetic call, and _next time_ , they'll be up on that mountain together, battling like old times. ( _Red wouldn't just give up on him without saying anything... right?_ )

He doesn't think anything beyond his senpai, however, until he gets a call from Crystal specifically asking if he has heard from the Pokemon League Champion. That's... odd. As it turns out, Professor Oak has been bizarrely absent from his post in Cherrygrove despite the fact that his most recent scheduled visit was an entire week prior, and any attempts she's made to get into contact with his grandson have earned her nothing but voice mail. Yellow, she says ( _it takes him a moment to connect the name with the not-boy in the straw hat from what must have been a year ago now_ ) answered just four days ago when she tried to see what was happening, but for the last two, the youngest of the Kanto Dex Holders has been uncharacteristically silent, as well. There's worry laced there in her tone when she concludes how she hadn't a clue what Blue's number was, and while she would have asked the tricky teen's “younger brother”, he _never_ answers her calls, emergency or otherwise. And it _is_ strange, he'll agree, that Oak hasn't shown his face or spoken a word in at least seven day's time, but the fact that not one, not two, but _three_ of the original quartet have gone silent brings him to a different conclusion than to what it is she must be thinking. These regions are a danger magnet, regardless of what anyone says. Give it another week, he assures her, and they'll be hearing news reports of a crisis averted by three fifteen-year-olds and a thirteen-year-old just a region over.

For what feels like the first time in his life, he's _right_.

He sits shoulder-to-shoulder with the twin-tailed researcher at her desk, radio set mere feet from their faces as it drones on about the recent attacks on the Sevii Islands just South of the Kanto region and a band of heroic children who protected Vermillion City from what could have only been a catastrophe. The news elicits a shout of victory from the child with black hair and a sigh of relief from the child with blue, apprehensive lips now loosened into two very different, yet distinct grins on each of their faces. The four's sudden disappearance has been explained and Kanto has been saved from what appears to be the _third_ attack from Team Rocket forces. All that they have left to do is wait for the call that brings with it apologies and first-hand recounts of all of the adventures that went on while the Johtoans sat on their tails, oblivious to the danger. So they wait. And they wait. _And they wait._ Gold is fast asleep when Crystal's PokeGear finally buzzes to life, but on the other end isn't Red or Yellow or even Silver.

It's Professor Oak.


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting two back-to-back, partly because it's been a while since an update, partly because this and the last one are meant to be read together. This one takes shortly after the one prior, after all, and they're both about the same thing. I think I mentioned that, as one completed piece, this "story" chronicles all of the canon material in the series, with those retellings buffered by the little snippets I'm posting here, so this particular bit was the segway into the Emerald Arc - if that wasn't obvious enough without being stated. X'D I still won't be including the canon sections, even if it flows better with this drabble, sorry to say. c': You'll all just have to check out the aftermath next installment. ;o

“What I'm about to show you... might not be easy to look at.”

This is the first time that Gold has ever been to Kanto. It was a thought that clung fiercely to the back of his thoughts on the trip over, arranged by the world renowned researcher himself and pulled together as quickly as they all could manage. It had been an easier thing to latch his thoughts onto, after all, than any of the possible alternatives. There's something gut wrenchingly suspicious about how quiet everyone's been as of late, and the fact that the old geezer's first words to either of them in more than a week's time was sudden and unexplained summons to his home in Pallet Town, grim tone and all, don't speak of good news at all. In the best case scenario, this is all an elaborate surprise party to celebrate another victory for the increasingly famous PokeDex Holders. At worst, the “resolution” of conflict over in Kanto is anything but, and every trainer that could be summoned ( _Silver, he thinks, is still absent; despite the fact that_ he _gave_ Gold _his number, he sure as the Distortion World didn't pick up the_ one time _he tried to put it to use_ ) will be necessary to put it down for good. Whatever it is, though, he hadn't wanted to let himself think on it too long or too hard. Worrying accomplished nothing but self harm, and with the few hours long ride completed and out of the way, all they had left to do was look and listen to whatever it was Oak couldn't bring himself to tell them over the phone. He's led them into the far reaches of his lab, hand wrapped tight around the door handle to his left and mouth pressed into a thin line as he says, “Even so, I thought you two deserved to see it with your own eyes.” The door swings open and light is shed down on what he quickly realizes is an old, spacious closet. Objects that have likely been abandoned for many years, layers of dust betraying to their untouched age are scattered across shelves barely screwed into the walls – but whatever they were all that time ago means nothing to him. In fact, he doesn't even noticed they're there. It'd be hard to focus on anything but the brilliantly sculpted, life size statue of his four senior Dex Holders standing proud in the center of the room.

But this doesn't make _sense_. The professor hangs his head as The Hatcher takes a few strides forward, inspecting the details of a sleeping, stone Yellow's belt and the way a shirtless, also stone Red's fingers clutch almost life like around her shoulder. All of this build up... and for what? A statue? A glance cast backwards shows that the mood has not lightened, that the boys and girls depicted before him haven't jumped out of their hiding places behind the counters of the lab to share this moment with their two confused juniors – and that's when he sees it. Behind Blue, there is another figure, crouched low to the ground and looking just a touch out of place compared to the four heroes of Kanto. It's because he's a hero of _Johto_. _Silver._ Crystal sucks in a pained breath behind her, one that she holds for a very, _very_ long time, but Gold can't help the smile that pulls on his face as what he thinks to be understanding finally dawns on him. “Oh, _I_ get it, old man. You thought we'd be upset because they forgot to include _us_ , right?” Not that he'd be wrong in thinking so. Some part of his heart tugs at the knowledge that he's been omitted from a piece of art dedicated to what he's stood for and what he's fought for alongside these five frozen faces – but no, no, that's not right, because when he turns around, there's something wet glittering in the corner of Crystal's eyes and the man he who gave him the single most useful item in all of history on that rainy day by the river _still_ won't catch their eye. Golden hues flicker between stone and flesh, confusion leaping over his pupils like puddles as his brain scrambles to find some bridge between what's in front of him and the reactions of those behind him.

… And then he _really_ understands.

“... No. N... _No_! You're not trying to tell me -”

Words die in the back of his throat in the same moment that a sob tears itself from Crystal's. Together, they stare, mortified and awestruck, at the solid corpses of those who have died to keep their region from harm. ( _Whoever did this, he thinks when language returns to him, is going to_ pay.)


	7. seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaah, my deepest apologies! My desktop crashed some months ago once and for all, and my replacement took a lot longer to set up than we thought it would, so only just now am I getting settled down into it. (Worse is that we've gotta wipe it in the next day or two because apparently building a computer from scratch with no prior experience DOESN'T go perfectly smooth; who'da thunk?) That being said, the text document I've been nabbing drabbles off of is saved on a computer I'm NOT using. Fortunately for us all, the application these little buggers were written for isn't locked, so I can nab 'em straight from the source rather than waiting around to get the file dedicated to it on my computer for updates.
> 
> This'll be another two-for-one update, partly for the wait, partly because I forgot this little segway chapter even EXISTED, partly because it's SHORT, but mostly because I have no sense of consistency. ;D

Gold is twelve when his best friend dies, and it isn't until he's thirteen that they finally discover a way to bring him back.

Well – alright, maybe it's a bit too soon to call him his _best_ friend, or maybe even a friend at all, but it's easy to mix up the specifics in his mind when its so frazzled by the fact that the combined effort of the Professor's near endless expanse of Pokemon knowledge and Crystal's all-nighters spent looking into the various myths of the world and whether or not they have any foothold in real life have found what may very well be the only way to reverse death. As a personal rule, he likes to believe that _wishing_ isn't a very sound part of a good strategy, and one that relies solely on praying to some higher being for a stroke of luck ( _expecting it, on the other hand, is another story entirely_ ) is probably better scrapped the second its brought to life than bothering to entertaining it. At first, he's incredulous that they'd suggest such a thing at all. Once all has been explained to him, however, realization sets in that wishing is the best option they have left. “Jirachi,” his best _living_ friend begins, and it's the first of many times he'll hear the creature's name, “is a Pokemon who can grant any wish asked of it.” Myth speaks of heroes who have returned barren wastelands to fertile soils in ages of old, of villains who would try and fail to wish for endless youth or wealth for themselves and no one else. What they are shocked to find is that the being itself is no myth. Better yet, their statistics show that it's going to be showing its face to the unsuspecting region of Hoenn in just a bit over two months' time, allotting for _more_ than enough time for the three to prepare for its arrival and the – with any hope – revival of the five petrified Dex Holders. To make matters even better, Hoenn already has a duo of children who the foreign Professor Birch has entrusted two of Oak's PokeDexes to, and it sounds as though a tenth gifted child is on the way to aid them in their most bizarre quest yet. Waiting games are the only ones he finds himself a frequent loser of – but if that's what it'll take to see the whole gang back together and _breathing_ again, he thinks he'll just have to fight harder than he ever has to claim his victory.

“We'll have you good as new, Senpai, just you wait,” The Hatcher says on the day they're set to be shipped out to Hoenn, hiding in plain sight as “real statues” in the Battle Frontier slated to open on the date of Jirachi's arrival. He's walking around Green's slightly bent form to meet Red in the “eye” ( _part of him still trying to figure out what, exactly, happened to make him lose the shirt and hat_ ), pausing briefly before his heroic stance and Yellow, who he holds in his arms, before changing targets altogether. It takes a great deal of restraint to keep himself from staring too long at Blue or the mini skirt she has, regrettably, decided to swap out that little black dress for, but it becomes just a touch easier when his eyes finally land on the hunched over form of the boy behind her. “You, too, Silv. … Don't think for a second I'll let anyone get away with doing this to you.” He stares maybe a bit too long – one of the workers prepping the group for movement coughs at him, and all of them don't seem to understand why he's talking to a bunch of stone figures like they're actual people – before he breaks away to stand next to Crys.

“Safe travels,” she bids them quietly. Bizarrely, she doesn't seem to complain about the way their sleeves brush against one another, nor does she protest the hand he's daring enough to place silently on her shoulder. There are three others like them somewhere out there, and thousands of lives have been spared at the cost of only five. Why does it feel like they're the only two survivors of some horrible catastrophe?

“We should get going, too, Gold.”

There are places to be, special moves to master, a woman named Ultima on an island named after the number Two who has been so “gracious” as to pass on her secrets to them. If all goes according to plan, it will ultimately be a wasted trip. Considering the fact that it never does, they take to the skies with determination beating loudly in their chests. They've got two months. ( _To Gold, it feels like two_ years.)


	8. eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little known fact about me: more than I am romantic shipping fodder am I PLATONIC shipping fodder. My "OTP", as the youngins sometimes call it, is literally just, like. A family dynamic. No romance, just friendship. It definitely shows in this piece (and even moreso in some of the juicy bits of this application that you don't get to see, sorry to say), so if you're down for platonic Johtrio bonding time...

Things change between the three of them. It starts when Silver tells him that he'd been conscious the entire time that he was trapped in stone just after the five are freed – it's meant to explain why his Feraligatr masters the Hydro Cannon attack literally seconds after it returns to life, but that's not at all what Gold is thinking about when he says it – but that is just a prelude to the flurry of hugs and noogies and punches that come after Emerald's week-long trial at the Frontier finally reaches its conclusion. Crystal is forgiving enough to save her scolding until _after_ she's scooped him up into her arms, and even _that_ seems to be only a fraction of the fit she could be pitching out of what must be sympathy for the months he's spent caught in limbo. As for Gold, they're back to being “bitter rivals”, and neither one makes any mention of the fact that the word “buddy” had been used or that something Blue would have called “steamy hand holding” had transpired before their wish was granted. This is where the noogies come in sparingly and the punches come in in spades. He can hear their female companion groan in exasperation when _one little comment_ about his elder sister's “smoking hot outfit” dissolves into a fist fight, but more than that, he hears the sound of relief in her puff of air. The fact that they can be rolling around on the ground at all, clenched fingers colliding with a jaw here and a knee making good friends with a gut there, is nothing short of a miracle. By the time they've arrived at Professor Oak's lab in Cherrygrove, exhaustion has claimed residency deep in their bones, and the motherly one of their trio has just barely set out makeshift beds when they collapse onto one another in one sleeping friend pile. ( _He wakes up briefly to bird song in the earliest lights of the morning, Crystal curled up over his legs and a dark fleece jacket covering a rising and falling chest functioning as the best pillow_ ever _. Sleep overcomes him again quickly, but the image stays fresh in his mind when he wakes up to a missing rival and a flustered lab assistant come noon._ )

Despite the fact that dying changed nothing at all in the red head's less-than-perfect living habits, they manage to keep tabs on him by forcing him to keep in touch at least one day out of every week. It's to ensure that they know when something demanding their attention has happened, The Catcher insists, but they all know that it's more for the peace of mind of those who cannot travel so freely. The red head in question objects at first – but something in her eyes must be stronger than his resolve, and weekly stops at Cherrygrove become part of the routine to see how Silver is doing out in Kanto or Johto or _wherever_ it is that his run from the law and his own personal quests have taken him. This goes on for only so long before they get a call telling them that his father has gone missing, and if he has any hope of finding him again, he's going to have to cut out all distractions from the equation... _including_ his fellow Dex Holders from Johto.

It physically pains him to have to agree, but Gold knows how it is when it comes to absent fathers and the focus it takes to find missing family members. For now, the two aids can only accept his first genuine “goodbye” over the phone as compensation for the unknown amount of time that will earn them nothing but silence from the other end. It could be weeks, or it could be months.

( _An entire year has passed, and each ring of the phone in that laboratory brings Silver's image to mind; it's never him on the other end of the line._ )


	9. nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I planned this “story” - or, more accurately, when I was trying to come up with how to word the application, I envisioned a scene not EXACTLY like the one that follows, but definitely close. You could say that this was the part that I went into this story looking forward to writing, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> I think I mentioned that things wouldn't be TOO shippy; hinted-at attraction and the following are as close as it's gonna get, so I hope that still counts as, uh. Not. Too shippy! *sweats profusely* Also, another thing to note is that... um... cutting out the canon plot line sections robbed this fic as a whole of a couple of very minor plot points, so if you notice Gold acting weird about his dad with absolutely zero context, IT WAS... THERE ORIGINALLY, just ignore it. Pure head canon there. Nothing to see, really. C': Anywho, have fun, and thanks for reading up 'til this point! <3

Gold is only fifteen, but his childhood dream of growing up to be quite the teenaged heartthrob is finally starting to come to fruition. Years spent gambling away all of his money at the slot machines at the local Game Corner – or, better yet, the massive one in Goldenrod – never really earned him much attention from the affectionately named “ladies”, any and all attempts to swoon the opposite gender earning him a roll of the eyes or a kick in the... er, _pride_. He'll settle on pride. Now that puberty has come to pass, though, there's no doubt that eyes have _finally_ started to turn his way. The downside is that his mother finds reason in reminding him that he looks more and more like his father every day, the likes of which only stirs old emotions mixed with new ones involving an absent rival and the quest for his _own_ father, but it's quickly “forgotten” in favor of the numbers he adds to his PokeGear from cute girls he's met at the pool hall or while making his way to the Daycare Center south of Johto's largest city, each one seemingly prettier than the last. He learns quickly that his job helping the Daycare Couple to hatch all of the eggs they find doesn't exactly earn him any points in the game of love, but bragging about his victories in Johto and Hoenn earn him the title of “hero” from more than a few strangers, and working as a part time aid for both Elm _and Oak_ does the trick when he needs to _pretend_ to be humble. For all of the girls he's dated and a dumped within a week, though, there's only one girl who ever sticks around long enough for him to give much of an after thought. Come to think of it, these are the first few days ( _excluding the first one where she was just some motor-mouthed prissy girl_ ) where he's really seen her as much of a girl at _all_.

She's Crys, _Crystal_ , the one who's always there to tell him when he's wrong and pick him up when he's down. What she _could_ be, though, is that and _so much more_.

It takes a long while before he comes up with an answer, albeit shaky, to the question of whether or not he even _wants_ her to be more in his life, a few days to determine what would be the best location for an outing, and _weeks_ to screw up the courage to ask her out on anything even _remotely_ resembling a date. When he goes to her, he starts it out simple, asking her as he would have Red or Emerald if she'd like to take a trip up the mountain side of Mount Silver. The Pokemon there are ferocious, they both know, but what _he_ knows that she doesn't are all of the places the mountain holds that are draped in unspeakable beauty. And hey – at the very least, there are those hot springs that his senpai had to recuperate in after the battle against Kanto's Elite Four five years ago, and if swimming and the prospect of catching wild Pokemon that outwit all others in both neighboring regions don't catch her attention, he's not sure anything will. For a few heart stopping moments, it sounds as though she's going to turn him down, eyes lingering too long over her stack of unfinished paperwork ( _the likes of which, he must add, are all for the following month, and all of the work she has already done is far ahead of schedule_ ) before she makes her decision. To his relief, she accepts.

“So... it's a date, then. Right?”

These are the sort of comments that get the pool player slapped across the face at best and an earful from the girl standing dumbfounded before him right now at worst. There is no filter to keep the runaway thoughts in his head from spilling out of his mouth, and the repercussions, while strong, are just never enough to pound the lessons into his mind. _This_ time, however, he's planned out his words oh-so carefully. They've been rehearsed in his head a thousand times to get the job done all while sounding like the thoughtless ventures that he usually submits her to. This is what will make or break this whole thing, and the look of incredulity that colors her face makes it seem as though she's leaning more toward the latter. And then, in one fantastic moment, she softens. The words are hesitant, but they're there, and once they've been spoken, he feels like he can _breathe_ again. “... Yes. Yes, I guess it is.”

Camping supplies have been expertly strapped onto the back of Megaree, clothing and the smaller supplies shoved tight into their backpacks as Exbo carries them through Newbark Town, past Route 38, and up the foothills of the mountain that the breeder once called home for months at a time. So far, everything has gone according to plan. The weather is fine and slated to stay that way for the next week or so, nothing has been forgotten or moved out of place, Kurt's latest batch of PokeBalls came in just in time to make it along for the trip, and she's even let him hold her hand for a whole ten minutes without nagging at him about personal space or something equally bothersome. Really, when she's not trying to pretend to be his mother, he's not sure there's a better girl out there for him, and if all goes well, this may just be the first step in scoring himself a girl he'll _want_ to stick around.

Unfortunately for them, however, they aren't the only ones who have decided to pay the warm slopes of Mount Silver's lowest elevations a nice little visit. They haven't even been on the darned thing a whole twenty minutes when they come across an unsuspecting duo comprised of Yellow, who's exhausted from communicating with the local Pokemon, and Red, who had had the bright idea to bring her along to see his favorite training place in the entirety of Pokearth. The thing about Red and company is that he never has a problem with inviting in more, and the problem about Red and reading the mood is that he _doesn't_. There's tension in Crystal's shoulders, though, that he hasn't noticed until it leaves at the site of the blonde-haired girl in the straw hat, and it only then dawns on him that she's been horrendously nervous about this since they've left the lab. A few hours with his senpai and the their other senior... certainly wouldn't do them _bad_ , he supposes, and if Red would realize the lovey dovey eyes the fisherman ( _fisherwoman?_ ) makes at him whether he's looking or not, one could almost consider this a double date. A bland one, but a double date none the less.

Plans both in and outside of their world-saving endeavors don't seem to go his way, though. Their party of four is crashed by the addition of Blue no more than an hour later, having learned of this little get together on the mountain side via an interrupting call to Yellow just thirty minutes prior, and she'd taken the liberty of inviting the Hoenn trio, one of which “couldn't make it” and the other two of which show up a little later in the morning. Come one in the afternoon, their number totals seven ( _just like after the Mask of Ice incident_ ), all of them present save for Ruby, who has scoffed at the idea of spending a day on “that filthy mountain”, Green, who was too wrapped up in the gym and likely not at all interested in the shenanigans they were all bound to pull, and Silver, whose whereabouts are only known by his sister and are to be shared with absolutely no one else under absolutely no conditions. ( _Despite the fact that he knows he's never showing up, Gold can't help but keep his eyes on the horizon whenever he can, part of him hoping to see a familiar head of red break over the line between land and sky._ ) What had started as a quiet adventure for two has become an explosive party for all, the Meganium already holding their few days' worth of camping supplies becoming a coat hanger for spare clothes and swim suits, and they all pitch in to set up camp just a hop and a skip away from one of the largest hot springs Red could recall off the top of his head. Sapphire begs Red to show her his best training techniques, and his pupil, despite hoping to pull his would-be _date_ away for a moment's worth of privacy is not-exactly-reluctantly pulled into a demonstration of their best tag teaming efforts from training days long passed. Crystal ends up showing them all a display in Pokemon capturing that, even after lengthy explanation after lengthy explanation, is still beyond them all. Yellow and Emerald work together to calm a hoard of Golem that come tumbling down the mountain and pose a threat to their setup of tents and campfire wood, and between the impressive display and the safety of their camp once all is said and done, not a soul is complaining afterward.

At some point, Blue insists on calling up the only missing Kanto trainer at his gym, and all seven are surprised to have caught him in the midst of a Gym challenge. “If you'll excuse me, not all of us have the amount of freedom that you do,” the Gym Leader says icily through the phone, but something in the back of Gold's mind tells him that the only reason he paused the challenge the answer the phone at all was because of who the caller ID was telling him it was. Rather than hanging up, however, she puts her PokeGear on speaker and holds it up to the other six Dex Holders present, the likes of which hoot and hollar good luck wishes his way ( _and Emerald, who may or may not have wished death upon the poor challenger; they can only pray the stranger can't hear their pandemonium through the Oak's speaker_ ).

“Good luck to you both!” Yellow says cheerfully.

“Show 'em what we're made of, Green – for all of us!” Red chimes in after.

“Kick their ass so hard they can't sit down for a week!”

Those who had the forethought to bring along swimwear take a plunge into the springs after Green unceremoniously hangs up on them – and it's _not at all_ related to Gold's ass-kicking comment, he _swears_ – and they throw water wars with each other until the sun is swallowed up behind the jagged fangs of the mountaintops and the juniors have passed out by the water's edge, having to be carried back to camp and tossed sloppily into the only two tents available. The remaining five take to sleeping out under the stars, sharing stories of places they've been and things they have seen between the acts of heroism that force them to come together. To neither his nor Crystal's surprise, there's much more to the story on the Sevii Islands than the radio had told them two years ago, and the _only slightly_ exaggerated story comes from Blue's mouth ( _with helpful input from Red and Yellow to fill in those parts that Blue wasn't awake or around for!_ ) for what seems like hours and _hours_. As it turns out, Silver's hunt for his father goes beyond just trying to reunite with his family. Yellow looks ashamed when she unthinkingly tells them the truth about Giovanni and his relationship with the silver-eyed thief, afraid that she has shared information that he'd knowingly kept from the two, but the two shrug off the information as seemingly only they can. Silver is... Silver, despite what blood runs through his veins. The Hatcher doesn't think he could name a single person out there who would like to see Team Rocket eating dirt for an eternity more than _that_ guy, and if there's one person on the planet who could make the group's leader see the error in his ways, it falls on the same teen. “Story time” comes to a close when Yellow falls asleep on Red, who then proceeds to fall asleep on _Yellow_ , both of which have their picture taken by Blue, who then announces that they'd all best sign off for the night, themselves. What with the way his eyelids have been refusing to cooperate, he can't find it in himself to argue. ( _He's lulled to sleep by the sound of a nearby Noctowl hooting in the night, kept warm by the heat that his blue-haired friend radiates inches away from him between two sleeping bags._ )

They all part ways come the morning, no one but the Johto duo having prepared to stay any longer than an evening, but it's easy to see that Crystal's getting antsy to return home come dinner time, and even more so in the morning after when they wake up to no one but themselves, their Pokemon, and the wide hand of Mother Nature. They call in early, descending the mountain with twenty new Pokemon on hand and a lightness in his mind that wasn't there on their way up. As it turns out, camping trips are not the ideal place to take your first date, particularly when your teacher, his not-quite-girlfriend, and the rest of the available “squad” show up as soon as the opportunity presents itself to crash the whole thing. When they stop at the doorstep of the lab to drop Crystal off, though, the moon slowly inching upward in the sky, there is a wide, genuine grin that paints her face. “I had a lot of fun,” she tells him, and while he's more than a touch certain it's not entirely, or even _mostly_ thanks to him, he can take at least a shred of the credit for being the one to invite her out in the first place. If he's being honest with himself, he doesn't foresee a second date rearing its head in the near future, if ever in the future at all – and for some reason, that thought feels so _liberating_. Maybe he's just not ready for the commitment a relationship with a girl like her would take. She doesn't appreciate the “superficial” compliments he tosses her way ( _and_ that _way, and_ that _way, and really in any direction that there's a girl that can move_ ), nor does she care for just about all of his dirty habits and lifestyle, and if they were to ever truly settle down, he'd have to give up more than a bit before she could ever be truly comfortable with him. It's a thought that reminds him that he's only fifteen years old. Fifteen-year-olds, he decides, should not have to give up that much for an artificial relationship that could fall through at any given moment. So he bids her goodnight without a kiss on the lips, or even a kiss on the cheek, instead waving happily and telling her that they ( _and he means they,_ all _of them, because when they were up on that mountain altogether, there was a warmth in his chest that he feels ever so faintly when he's around her, but that much_ more _when everyone else is there with them, too_ ) should do this again soon before she's closing the door on him and he's left staring at the dark of the lab's front door.

“This love stuff,” he tells Aibo, who sits dutifully on his cap for the duration of the walk back to Newbark Town, “is _way_ too complicated for me.” He'll settle, he thinks, with building a monopoly of numbers from the Game Corner.


	10. ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually forgot about this fic and updating it, but I was posting some pieces for Mindcrime Day (happy Mindcrime Day, by the way) and remembered how long it's been since I posted something here. O-oops? 8'D

Two weeks have passed since what he's started to refer to as his “platonic date-turned-camping party” with Crystal when his PokeGear buzzes to life at his desk, tossed there carelessly when he abandoned it in favor of playing his Gameboy on his bed and only noticed when the vibration nearly sends it toppling off the edge and onto his floor. The trainer lunges for it, catching it a second before imminent flight, and speaks into the microphone in a voice that fails to betray the action movie-like catch it took to get him here. “Y'ello?”

There's a pause on the other end, and there's a silence that hangs heavier than that which has reigned over his room for the past few hours. When it breaks, it is by a voice that is loud, but uncertain. A voice that causes his heart to catch in his throat.

“... Hey.”

If there was a warmth that settled in his chest on that day up on the mountains with six of the other nine Dex Holders, his chest is on _fire_ now, set ablaze by a single word spoken by lips that have not spoken to him in what must be inching toward a mark of two years. Had it not been for Blue's reassurance, they would have thought him _dead_. As it turns out, he's very much alive ( _and this proves to be only the first of many calls they would come to exchange over the next year – but he doesn't know that_ yet.)

“Hey, buddy!” Gold says despite the excitement threatening to choke him, because this time, he doesn't _care_ if Silver hears him call him that. He isn't ashamed that they're friends now, not just rivals, and if the better trainer of the two tries to tell himself or anyone else that he doesn't think of the raven-haired teen as a friend, then he's as filthy a liar as he, himself, has been over the last four years.

“How've you been?”


	11. eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An apology second update. The HGSS arc is implied to have happened between this part and the part before it (so it's not just two kinda gay pieces next to each other), but that's hard to convey without including the actual HGSS arc parts I wrote. *sweats*

The Pokemon House, as the residents of New Bark Town call it, has never been a particularly quiet place. His mother is fond of blaring both radio and television at a time, humming her own tunes as she works on house chores here or works at her desk there, and between she and the dozens of Pokemon that fill the void her son leaves when he's off saving the world, they give plenty of cause for someone to call the police on them for noise pollution. Or they _would_ , assuming they had any neighbors close enough to care, much less any neighbor who wasn't already a personal friend of the household.

It comes to a surprise to him, then when the volume has been turned down to a near inaudible level when he drags Silver through the front door for the first time. His poor, unaware mother thinks that this is the first time he's had a friend over, and despite the fact that any vision of order in this building has already been shattered from those nights that the younger teen has already slipped in through their window and invaded their privacy, _she_ doesn't know that. So she puts on a face. Cooks up a fancy meal. Sends the Pokemon off to Professor Elm's lab so they don't bombard the two. This is all probably for the better, though, seeing as the first thing the red head does after introductions have come and gone is make a bee line for the television.

The only _real_ reason why he's here and entering the home like a normal person is because the old Goldenrod Radio director's children show airs on television for the first time tonight, and Gold promised to let him use his television to watch it in exchange for a favor or two. He knows he shouldn't expect him to hold up an act and pretend like he's interested in anything other than Proteam Omega's highly anticipated pilot, but that doesn't stop a pout from forming on his lips all the same.  
  
Those favors end up being cashed in immediately, and no sooner than dinner has been finished does the breeder pull his friend out of the house and onto the streets of his hometown. There aren't many places of interest to be found here, he admits, but they stop at each and every one, starting with the small vendors in the downtown area and finishing their tour with the pool hall that started it all. DJ Mary sings to them a song about a girl and her Fletchling, and when the sound is cut short from a thieving Murkrow outside, all he can do is laugh. It's about time he upgraded to a new radio, he explains when he makes no move to remedy the fact. Another billiards ball rolls into its desired hole as The Exchanger looks on in silence. ( _The air around them is full of comfortable quiet; this wasn't a trip wasted._ )  
  
“You know, you don't always have to make yourself a stranger,” Gold says. Honchkrow flaps its wings expectantly, impatient to get on the road again and confused as to why its trainer hasn't given it the order to go, but two pairs of eyes made of precious metals meet each other then, and he knows that his friend is really listening this time. “My, uh... mom really likes you. She wants you to come over again soon.”  
  
Giovanni's son takes off into the night in a flurry of cherry hair and jet black feathers, off to some nearby hideout from which he'll likely depart in the morning to disappear off the map once more. Still, the Pokemon House's only child closes the front door with a grin, heart feather light in his chest as he calls it a night. Against the quiet of a darkening New Bark evening, it had been impossible to hear those parting words:  
  
“... I'll think about it.”


	12. twelve

The Daycare Couple move their base of operations out of Johto and into the distant region of Unova. There's competition to be found here where there isn't any on the faraway continent, and while deep down he'll admit that he's sad to see them go, he knows that it's for the best. Business, after all, is still business. He kisses Johto's beautiful head farewell for as long as it will take to get them situated and then some, boarding for the first time in his life a boat and paying his first visit to the furthest region from the mainland there is. From what he's heard, there are even Dex Holders out here, although the odds of bumping into either one are incredibly slim. ( _He wolf whistles at a girl in black and white, pony tail high and short-shorts “smokin'”. It's impossible to tell at the time, but the Unovan Dex Holders may be closer than he'd originally thought._ ) In the meanwhile, he gorges himself on the local Castelia Cones and helps his party with the heavy lifting his elderly company simply cannot do. Complaints fill the air the whole way, but he doesn't fail to notice the way the Daycare Man's smile is a little fonder, Grandma's whacks upside the head a little less rough.  
  
Gold is the sort of teenager that parents would sooner be caught dead than passing their children over to, but anyone who has seen him with actual human children or especially the baby Pokemon he helps raise is quick to find there's no reason to. He's had enough practice from living at home with a swarm of Pokemon younger than him to know what care a growing child regardless of species needs, and what's getting on six years of experience ( _and a whole slew of unexplained natural talent_ ) helps to work out the finer things that change depending on what it is he's helping to care for.

Fun as it may be, though, to play with “the youngin's” and watch them grow from infancy to an age where they can make it on their own, nothing in the world can compare to what it feels like to be the first thing a newborn Pocket Monster sees upon entry into the world. All they know are the most basic emotions, joy and sorrow, how to smile and sob – it's up to the three of them to teach them how to stay strong in a world as unforgiving as their own. ( _He sees himself in every egg he has ever hatched, starting from his eyes on Togebo and his hair on little Pibu's head all the way up to the saunter in this Girafarig's step and the grin on that Sneasel's face. He used to wonder if it was his mind over-complicating things, projecting himself onto those he helped bring into the world, but the couple tells him that they only go to him for a reason. These Pokemon are stronger than they would have been under anyone else, fiercer in their determination to survive and thrive and gentler in their hearts when it matters. They'll miss him when he leaves. They hope he'll continue to keep his profession alive on more familiar soil._ )  
  
The Hatcher's luggage is twice as heavy leaving than it was on entry. He's packed every souvenir he possibly could, stuffing until the zipper threatened to give out beneath his tugging fingers. Nothing material, however, can compare to the warm embraces they give him when they part ways. He'll never see them again face to face, but the training and the knowledge they've imparted with him will live with him far longer than they will. Maybe he'll open a Daycare of his when he returns, he thinks once he's on the ocean. Maybe...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting this story exists. The ending gets ever closer, and I remember that I need to actually... write... it out..........


	13. thirteen

“You think I could afford this old place?”  
  
Professor Oak's two aids stand shoulder to shoulder as they make their way out of the Goldenrod city limits, passing a half-melted shake back and forth that they take turns sucking on. ( _“Does this count as an indirect ki-” the male had started at the female's first sip, only to be interrupted by a foot to the face cutting him short._ ) To their left stands the old Center, as old and rickety as the ones who'd once lived there and, miraculously, still up for purchase. Golden eyes stare at it longingly as they pass. So intent is that stare that it takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that his partner has stopped walking beside him.  
  
“Assuming you stop squandering all of the money Professor Elm pays you at the Game Corner,” she says, and the underlying chastising doesn't go unnoticed. There's a pause before she continues thoughtfully, “... But if you're serious about this, I don't see why the Professors and I wouldn't give you a _bit_ of a loan...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only update in duos from now on. Okay, but actually, the two parts after this are: a) where things take a turn for the ESPECIALLY gay, and b) where things become too hyper-specialized in setting to be relevant to this fic anymore, so if I take a while updating coming up, it's because I'm actually - surprise, surprise! - writing new content for this piece, and not just forgetting about its existence entirely. ;u;
> 
> Right now, I'm not actually sure where a good place to leave off would be. In its original form, there were actually supposed to be at least five more sections (one of which would've been as long as the Mt. Silver escapade, oof), but it's been so long that I don't remember what most of that was supposed to BE, and even if I did, that would definitely take a turn for the Way Too Shippy, which I promised I'd try not to do. Honestly, I think adding in two more parts would be nice so this piece can end on a nice fifteen "chapters", but... Well, I need to figure out what to fill those last two parts with! Until then, though, the end is in sight... I hope you'll stick around for it~!


End file.
